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Explaining parts of the UI
The Main Window The bottom section The lower part of the main screen consists of two major sections, the command/input line and the far right, containing various buttons and info. The input line is self explanatory, you type stuff there to set off aliases and send text to the MUD. At the far right of the bottom of the main window is another text field, a selection of buttons and a small display: The first bit, the text field, is simple a search bar. It will scan the main display for matching text from the bottom upwards, jumping to and highlighting the matching text. Jumping to the other end, the white display with two labels and numbers is 'N' for network latency and 'S' for system processing speed, the time it took to process the last output from the MUD. In the middle of those two sections is a group of buttons: * The up and down arrows control the scanning of the search field (as opposed to just hitting enter with your cursor inside of it). * A toggle-able button with a information logo that displays time-stamp labels on the main display text. * A toggle-able button with an image of a video tape, to record replays (I have never used this, but from what I gather is used to capture text to re-play at a later date, which can be used to set off and test your triggers/settings). * A toggle-able button with a blue folder and a green arrow, that toggles on and off logging of the MUD to your hard drive. * and finally another toggle-able button that (I think?) is supposed to look like a bomb, upon activation changes into an explosion symbol (again, I think?) to signal that all your settings have been disabled; aliases/triggers/etc will not fire or run. The Settings Editor The Top Bar We already talked about the 'Save Item' and 'Save Profile' buttons in the 'Saving your settings' tutorial, so we will skip over those. * The 'Add Item' button is specific to the type of setting the editor is open for, such as if you click 'Aliases' on the Main Window toolbar, it would open the Settings Editor ready to work on Aliases. So in that case, the 'Add Item' button would then create a new, blank Alias ready for you to configure. * The 'Add Group' button is rather simple, it creates a folder to organise your settings, and besides just simply being a folder it has another use. The folder also acts as the setting type for which the folder is for, as in the image below, the 'Stuff' folder has its own Alias setting fields, as it is its own Alias too. This is only really useful for Triggers and Script settings as we will cover in the relevant tutorials. * The 'Delete Item' button is rather simple, but be careful. It WILL remove an entire folder worth of settings without warning if you try, but as we covered earlier, if you save frequently that is nothing to worry about, as long as you notice you deleted them in a timely manner. * The 'Activate' button is an overlooked button early on, but if you aren't paying attention can cause you a few headaches. When you create a new setting, be it an Alias or trigger, it is created in a deactivated state, as shown with a not checked Checkbox beside the name of the settings. Shown below is the difference between an Alias that is not activated, and one that is activated. You can toggle activation by selecting the setting in the Settings List and clicking the 'Activate Button', or simple double-clicking the settings in the Settings List. The Left Bar The left bar is mainly for switching between the type of setting the Settings Editor is editing. Click 'Aliases' to switch to the Aliases Settings Editor etc, one for each type of setting, but there are a few new buttons below those: The 'errors' button will show a small display at the bottom of the Settings Editor, showing error text for the current session. This is very useful for debugging, but by default (I think, at least its a setting you can toggle on and off in the 'Main display' tab of settings) the error text will be printed to the Main Display. * The 'Variables' button is mostly just useful for debugging, but will open the Settings Editor for variables, enabling you to see and edit all the variables Mudlet has for the current session, all your values from settings and a fair few ones Mudlet itself uses. The Settings List The Settings List is just a display for the currently type of setting the Settings Editor is open for, such as if you clicked 'Aliases' to edit Aliases, the Settings List would display all the Aliases for your profile. As mentioned before, you can use the 'Add Group' button to create folders for the Settings List, the 'Activate' button to toggle the setting that is currently highlighted in the Settings List on and off, or just double click a setting in the Settings List to toggle it on and off. Click the little indented arrows beside the Groups/Folders in the Settings List to expand and collapse them. The Search Bar (Tutorial update pending, search bar has had a makeover and improvement) A simple but very useful functionality, the Search Bar matches text you enter to ANY field of ANY setting; you can use it to find matching Trigger text, Alias names, Alias patterns, Script variables. You name it, if its text it will find it. The Scripting Field Each setting type also supports firing some script when it goes off; for example, while an Alias may normally very simply send some text, you could also have some Lua code inside its Scripting Field to do any number of different things. Scripting Fields are where the real power of settings comes in later, but we will cover those in the Intermediate section and onwards.